Another year of the BCS failing us

Year after year, the debate continues about college football at the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level about the lack of a playoff system to determine the champion.

Every couple of years, something happens that leaves a few teams wondering why they weren't given a shot at the championship game. In the 2004-2005 season, Auburn, Boise State and Utah all finished undefeated, and none were given a shot for the BCS Championship.

Instead, USC demolished Oklahoma in the championship game 55-19. Now, I'm not saying that Utah, Boise State or Auburn would have played a better game, but at the end of the season they still had zeros in the loss column.

In fact, controversy comes up so much that Wikipedia has its own page dedicated to BCS controversies, which details what dilemmas sprung up each year in the BCS.

Once again, in 2011, nothing has changed. This year, I see even more issues than in the past. Currently, LSU and Houston are the only two unbeaten teams remaining.

Based off of the current system, Houston will never get a chance to accurately gauge how competitive of a team they are. With quarterback Case Keenum, who owns most Division I passing records and an explosive offense, Houston could possibly hang with any other team if the game turned into a shootout.

In the current system, LSU has done everything right. They've won the games they were supposed to win by big margins, defeated Alabama in an overtime thriller, and they head into the South Eastern Conference championship game undefeated.

The real issue in the BCS lies between No. 2 Alabama and No. 7 Boise State. Other than Houston, which is ranked No. 6, every team between two and seven has one loss. Alabama's was a 9-6 overtime loss to LSU, and that's why they are now ranked second.

Oklahoma State is third and also has one loss which came against Iowa State the day after members of the women's basketball team at OSU died in a plane crash. Now, I'm not saying that should be factored into the standings, but it definitely played a part in the loss.

Next, you have Stanford, Virginia Tech and Boise State. I'll start this one off with Boise State. They'll never be taken seriously until they move to a more powerful conference. Even though Boise State beat Georgia, who will play LSU in the SEC championship game, that won't factor into giving Boise State a shot at a title, even if Georgia upsets LSU.

The next two teams are Stanford and Virginia Tech. Both lost to other ranked opponents, and Virginia Tech gets a rematch with Clemson in the ACC title to prove that they've improved from the 23-3 loss in October to the Tigers. Stanford lost its only game of the season to Oregon, 53-30.

With all of these one loss teams and a ton of competitive two loss teams, why does Division I college football continue to have a bowl system that doesn't give an equal chance for teams to beat each other on the field?

Is it the revenue gained from all of the bowls? Maybe it could be all of the controversy stirred up by the media about what the rankings should be and who should play in what game.

Well, here is my solution on how to keep making money from the bowl games and how to keep the media interested. Cut one non-conference game from every teams schedule and have a 16-team playoff.

You can take the top 16 teams in the BCS standings and have them play out until a champion is crowned. Have each game take place in the setting of one of the bowl games and keep the sponsors on for the game.

Have the Rose Bowl as the championship game, the Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl could be venues for the semifinals matchups and so on.

With this system, you are able to keep the sponsors and venues happy with still having big ticket games take place in their stadiums under their sponsorship, and you also have a playoff system that will allow you to truly crown a champion.

It will give teams like Boise State and Houston a chance to matchup against Alabama and Stanford to truly see how they can hang with the power conference teams.

You also still keep the argument about who will make it into the 16-team field. It will be great for ESPN because they can have a four-hour-long special to unveil the field like they do for March Madness.

In my eyes it's a win-win situation for everyone. You actually give every team a chance, you still have people talking about rankings and the sponsors for bowl games are happy about having big-ticket matchups in the bowl games.

So if you're a fan of Virginia Tech, Stanford, Oklahoma State or Houston, you should be angry that Alabama is currently in position to rematch the LSU team that beat them. It just doesn't make sense that we leave it up to polls and a computer system to select which two teams deserve to play each other in the championship game instead of doing what every other sport does, let the players sort it out on the field.